Background#

Silicon Labs is developing products designed to meet the demands of customers as we move to an ever-connected world of devices in the home, what is often referred to as the IoT (Internet of Things). At a high level the goals of IoT for Silicon Labs are to:

  • Connect all the devices in the home with best-in-class networking, whether with Zigbee, Thread, Bluetooth, or other emerging standards.

  • Leverage the company’s expertise in energy-friendly microcontrollers.

  • Enhance established low-power, mixed-signal chips.

  • Enable cloud services and connectivity to smartphones and tablets that promote ease of use and a common user experience for customers.

Achieving all of these goals will increase adoption rates and user acceptance for IoT devices in the Connected Home.

As the range of options available to the application designer increases, the impact of early design choices also increases. This document describes the application design process in terms of major decisions that must be made about how to architect a wireless networking solution. Basic design choices include:

  • Which Silicon Labs wireless technology to use

  • Whether to use an SoC (system-on-chip) design or an NCP (network coprocessor) design

  • If using the NCP model, how to select compatible NCP and host applications

Design choices when developing a Zigbee solution include:

  • How to create the network (form, join, or leave)

  • What security models will be used

  • What kind of routing optimizations to employ in the network

  • How to deliver messages through the network

Once you have considered these choices, you can begin implementing the system design.

Note: Zigbee EmberZNet SDK 7.0 introduced a new component-based architecture, along with a Project Configurator and other tools to replace AppBuilder and plugin configuration. In general, the new software components are comparable to the plugins. Unless otherwise specified, the term 'component' should be understood to refer to the corresponding plugin, if you are working in SDK 6.10.x or lower. When applicable, instructions for both version 7.0 and higher and 6.10.x and lower are provided. For more information, see AN1301: Transitioning from Zigbee EmberZNet SDK 6.x to SDK 7.x.